Objection! (30 page)

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No one seemed to accept that a zealot had taken this lovely girl as his child-bride, held her prisoner, mistreated and abused her, hiding her in plain sight for months. It happened. But even her return and the arrests of Brian Mitchell and his evil sidekick Wanda Barzee didn’t stop the painful and illogical allegations. The public wasn’t appeased to learn of Elizabeth’s unbelievable pain and misfortune; there just had to be a “darker side” to it all, and so the Smarts suffered even more.

The finger-pointing focused on her parents, Ed and Lois Smart.

The two had battled tirelessly for the safe return of Elizabeth, yet there seemed to be little pity for them. Why? The list of things they’d done to earn public scorn was a long one. They had employed the homeless to work on their home. Shortly before Mitchell came along, down-on-his-luck Richard Ricci was hired for odd jobs at the Smart home. It was not until after Ricci was fired by Ed Smart for stealing that his rap sheet—

including burglary, aggravated robbery, and attempted murder—was discovered. Somehow, for hiring the homeless, it was openly concluded that the Smarts had violated their sacred trust to protect their children.

How heartbreaking this must have been for parents who had lived through so much pain and turmoil for such a long time.

There was already speculation that Elizabeth’s disappearance was an “inside job,” that Elizabeth was really a rebellious runaway, and that somehow the whole thing was mixed up with the family’s deep involvement with their Mormon church. By the time the dust settled, the family had been skewered, polygraphed, and ridiculed. But you know what? They never listened. They believed. Even when police told them they were wrong to continue hoping for their daughter’s safe return, they fought and they brought their girl home. Alive.

I’ll never understand why people were eager to heap blame on the Smarts. It’s not as if those blaming the victims were defense attorneys with a “job” to do. There was nothing to gain by attacking Elizabeth or her family. Then it dawned on me. People wanted to blame the Smarts as a way of saying that this would never happen in
their
home. I really believe that was the misguided reasoning behind a lot of the mean-spirited O B J E C T I O N !

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talk about the Smarts. The thinking was,
I’d never bring someone I
didn’t know into my home. I’d never be at risk the way the Smart family
was because I simply wouldn’t be that naïve.
This self-serving thinking was so pervasive that it allowed the hard truth to be avoided:
We are all
at risk.
It doesn’t matter if it’s the cable guy, the mailman, the yard guy, the door-to-door salesman, the woman with a broken-down car, the Avon lady, or the pizza deliveryman. The world gets in.

The world finds a way in whether you are rich or poor, white or black, college-educated or a day laborer. I had to learn this at a very young age. Things can happen to you. They happened to me. Blaming the victim may make you believe you’re insulated, may make you sleep better at night, but the reasoning is simply not true. Sure, the finger-pointers may feel better, but they make the victims feel so much worse.

And in the Elizabeth Smart case, it all turned out to be lies.

As for the Smart family, it’s not over yet. There is still a trial to come. Initially Elizabeth’s parents did not want their daughter to take the stand in the case against her alleged abductors, Wanda Barzee and Brian “Emmanuel” Mitchell. They did not want their daughter to have to live through her ordeal again. After seeing the debacle surrounding the alleged victim in the Kobe Bryant case, can you blame them? Elizabeth will be cross-examined, and the usual defense tactics will be employed. None of them will be believed, of course, but the damage to this beautiful girl on cross-exam, after all she has managed to survive, will last a lifetime. The choice? Let them walk free. I believe that Elizabeth Smart will take the stand and that after hearing her, a jury will convict.

The truth will shine out like a light.

A H I G H - T E C H S O L U T I O N

One way to keep
defense attorneys for kidnappers and pedophiles from blaming their victims and their families is to look for new ways to prevent these crimes from happening in the first place. When Samantha 2 0 4

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Runnion, Danielle van Dam, and Elizabeth Smart were snatched from their homes, parents everywhere shared the dread and sense of helplessness of the girls’ families.

Technology does exist that pinpoints a person’s location using orbit-ing satellites. Now an inventor who originally wanted to tap the global positioning satellite system to find her runaway dog has won several patents for applying her idea to following and finding missing people.

Jennifer Durst, a single mother from Oyster Bay, New York, and two partners have patented a lightweight, portable GPS transceiver that she says is designed to be “form-fitted into a backpack, a baseball hat, or a belt,” for example. Ms. Durst, Eugene Fowler, and Joseph McAlexander have already gotten one patent for a “pet locator” and two more for a

“mobile object locator” that can be used to track animals or people.

According to Durst, the devices can be programmed with boundaries, and if those boundaries are exceeded, the devices send messages directly to a cell phone, a pager, a two-way personal digital assistant, a traditional phone, or even an e-mail address. Those messages are followed by continuously updated geographic information.

This could be an extremely effective tool in helping to locate missing children. A parent would program the perimeter of the yard or neighborhood into Ms. Durst’s gadget. Those coordinates could be changed or updated at any time. If the child went for a walk with a parent, the adult could use a password to suspend the boundaries.

When the person wearing the gadget leaves the specified perimeter, an alert is sent to a designated two-way-radio device. Location information follows in the form of text, figures, graphics, or numbers, and it is updated every few seconds, in effect following a person down a street, through a neighborhood, or around an amusement park. If the tracking system is removed for any reason, an alert and last known location are transmitted.

Ms. Durst has said that she’s also designed a model that incorporates a

“panic button,” so someone in distress can send an alarm about his or her location. The system is designed to notify the person back at the home base directly. Other GPS systems send data to a central computer.

O B J E C T I O N !

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Durst and her partners have several prototypes, including one that is part of a child’s fanny pack and could be rented to parents at places like Disney World. From Southern California to St. Louis, recent child abductions have kept our nation riveted, angry, scared—and wondering just what we have to do to keep our children safe. In the wake of these tragedies and near tragedies, this technology could be one key to stopping kidnappers and abductors in their tracks and preventing painful tragedies whose hurt is never healed.

B E A T I T ! ( T H E M I C H A E L

J A C K S O N D E F E N S E

S T R A T E G Y )

As a result of Jackson’s
most recent child-molestation charges, the

“blame-the-victim” machine is in high throttle. Press reports and Jackson sympathizers assert outright that the boy’s mother and other relatives coached him into claiming molestation. They also claim the child’s family is only out for money—a multimillion-dollar settlement, to be exact, similar to the one in Jackson’s first known molestation scandal in the early nineties.

Instead of focusing on the seriousness of the actual child-molestation claims in Jackson’s case, critics wonder out loud and in print why the mother allowed her child to spend so much time with a forty-year-old man, especially in light of past molestation claims against Jackson. Attacks on the parents started almost immediately after the charge was made public. Media outlets seemed thrilled to announce that the boy’s family was also involved in a lawsuit alleging that they’d been mistreated by mall security guards. Reports of the couple’s wrangling over a divorce, including the boy’s father pleading no contest to domestic abuse and child cruelty, were gobbled up like tasty appe-tizers in anticipation of a sumptuous main course . . . the trial!

Here’s the reality that Jackson supporters don’t want the public to 2 0 6

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know about: Regarding the mall incident, J. C. Penney Co. paid $137,500 in 1999 to settle the suit. Court records show that the family claimed that security guards had manhandled the boy, his mother, and his brother after alleging the boy had left the store carrying clothes that hadn’t been paid for. The mother also contended that she was fondled by one of the guards at the time of the 1998 confrontation.

As to the domestic claims, when the mother filed for divorce, a bitter fight was ignited, one that included criminal charges of abuse filed against the dad. The father’s attorney, Russell Halpern, claimed that the mother lied about the abuse and had a “Svengali-like” power to make her children repeat her lies. The reality is that the boy’s father pled no contest to a 2002 claim of child cruelty. The father also pled no contest to spousal abuse in 2001. So much for “coaching.” Those are the facts.

While the boy and his family were taking the heat, no one seemed to be taking a hard look at Jackson himself. After all,
he
was the one accused of child molestation. Jackson’s career stalled well before the current criminal case surfaced because of bizarre and highly publicied behavior, but in my book that’s the least of his credibility problems.

Prior bad acts, known legally as “similar transactions,” are coming back to haunt him. The 1993 child-molestation scandal rebounded like a boomerang, finally hitting him in court. The sworn affidavit of his first accuser, with whom Jackson settled for millions in order to keep the claims quiet, swears that Jackson kissed him on the mouth, fondled him, and twisted his nipples in bed while the boy’s mom was not around. Remember, this is the 1993 alleged victim under oath.

Even though he was never charged with a crime in that case, the King of Pop’s credibility is in grave jeopardy, all by his own doing.

Publicly denying his obvious and extensive plastic surgery, attributing a drastic change in skin tone to the pigment disorder vitiligo, publicly stating on national television he has sleepovers with boys, and blaming his troubles on racism and on some wacky conspiracy to get Michael Jackson, all turned many die-hard fans against him.

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It is apparently a lot easier for people to dwell on the boy’s family dysfunction as opposed to dealing with claims that a pop superstar molests little boys. Nevertheless, the family’s issues are critical to the case. Jackson’s defense insisted that the mother and child are not to be believed, fueling the credibility contest between a world-renowned superstar and a middle- to low-income little boy.

T H E E V I D E N C E M O U N T S

In the summer of 2004, stunning new developments in the Michael Jackson case landed like a bomb and bolstered the state’s case against him. It seems that once again Jackson has escaped criminal prosecution by paying off another alleged child victim, to the tune of millions. According to the French news agency AFP, Jackson admitted to making multimillion-dollar settlements to avoid court in the past, not just in 1993. Jackson’s statement was issued just hours before American media outlets were set to report new claims that the pop star had paid $2 million to another boy who accused him of inappropriate touching.

Jackson’s statement read, “Years ago, I settled with certain individuals because I was concerned about my family and the media scrutiny that would have ensued if I fought the matter in court. . . . I have been a vulnerable target for those who want money.”

Dateline NBC
reported Jackson paid over $2 million to the son of a Neverland Ranch employee after the child said the star fondled him.

The abuse allegedly went on for a period of time in 1990, when the child was twelve. It was widely reported the boy was the son of a maid at Neverland who quit working for Jackson once she learned of what had allegedly happened. It appears authorities discovered this 1990

case when they were investigating 1993 allegations involving a thirteen-year-old boy.

The second boy originally agreed to testify along with the thirteen-year-old in 1993, but backed out when the thirteen-year-old stopped cooperating and dropped out of the case. In 1994, Jackson’s lawyers 2 0 8

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announced he had settled a civil lawsuit for an undisclosed sum of money, now known to be nearly $20 million.

Throughout the latest chapter of Jackson history—claims he molested a child cancer patient—Jackson’s fans and supporters worldwide have demeaned the boy and his mother, showing up at every court appearance waving banners and ridiculing the boy, who miraculously seems to be beating deadly cancer. In light of a third boy coming forward, I wonder what they’re writing on their posters tonight? “We’re sorry” would be a good start.

R . K E L L Y

Sex allegations involving grown
men and young boys are still perceived as more aberrant than assaults on young girls. Just look at the case of R. Kelly. The singer, whose hits include “I Believe I Can Fly,”

“Bump ’n’ Grind,” “Feelin’ on Yo Booty,” and “Your Body’s Callin’,” is known for his sexualized lyrics and playboy lifestyle. He once told MTV, “I walk into a club and I can come out with two or three women, and that’s a problem for me.”